About five years ago, when I assisted Jay Shafer with the design and construction of my tiny home, the Mobile Hermitage, I intentionally designed the home with community in mind. It was because I leveraged my interdependence with the surrounding community and resources that I was able to make the house so tiny.

Community interdependence is the cornerstone and foundation of the movement toward simpler, smaller, and more sustainable living.

Sometimes referred to as New Urbanism, the principle is to have efficiency in the practical overlap and shared utilization of services and resources. An excellent example of this is The Cottage Company and their holistic approach to right sized communities.

The short-lived trend toward bloated and oversized homes was, in fact, a symptom of a pandemic societal illness of isolationsim and selfishness. This is similar to the phenomenon where illness, imbalance, and/or behavioral disorders can lead to obesity. Our homes were becoming obese because of an inability to interact interdependently and cooperatively with each other.